Species 50–100 (2 in the flora): introduced; chiefly Old World tropics, some weedy in New World tropics.

D. H. Nicolson (1980) pointed out that Emilia is taxonomically complicated with poorly defined, weedy species and an involved nomenclatural history. Emilia coccinea (Sims) G. Don is occasionally cultivated as an ornamental; it is not known to escape and persist in the flora. It keys here to E. fosbergii, from which it differs in having involucres 6–9 mm (lengths typically 1.5 times diameters). In cultivation, it has bright red to dark orange corollas. Nicolson provided drawings that illustrate the distinctions.